Life's a Beach
by Jelsemium
Summary: It's cold, it's foggy and where did those poodles come from? Originally written in July, 2006 for the Numb3rs Flash Fic Community at Live Journal. Specifically, Challenge #20 - 3 o’clock in the Morning


Insomnia's a Beach by Jelsemium (Written in July, 2006 for the Numb3rsFlashFic Challenge #20- 3 o'clock in the Morning)

Title: Insomnia's a Beach

Author: Jelsemium

Pairing/Characters: The entire Eppes nuclear family, sort of. Pairing: Alan/Margaret

Rating/Category: K/ Gen

Word Count: 2,206 (not counting the header.)

Spoilers: None

Summary: It's cold, it's foggy and where did those poodles come from?

Notes/Warnings: I figured this was appropriate for the challenge because the plot came to me at 3 AM.

Disclaimers: I don't own the characters. I don't own the poodles. I don't own the beach. I do own a bottle of Godiva liquor. (Two, in fact.)

Dedication: To Jestana, who supplied the graham crackers, thanks!

There was something ominous about the fog enshrouded beach. 

* * *

Grim clouds covered the sun and a chilly breeze pushed the mist around, teasingly hiding and revealing the sand dunes and the few people who had ventured out into the gloom.

Alan Eppes shook his head and tightened his grip on his wife's hand. Margaret's hand felt cold. Maybe coming to the beach today had been a bad idea. Alan tried to remember who had suggested this outing, but couldn't. Probably just as well, it was the sort of hare-brained idea that he would come up with.

They strolled along, a team of six. Margaret and he, the two boys scampering ahead, dodging the incoming waves. Plus the two poodles, white and black, that frolicked ahead of the boys and chased sea gulls.

He looked sideways at Margaret and smiled apologetically. The fog turned her smile into a Cheshire cat grin: here – gone –back – veiled.

He tugged on her hand, but instead of allowing herself to be drawn into his embrace; she pulled free and picked up her pace.

"Boys!" she called. "Maybe it's time to go back inside."

Don whirled and scowled. He was getting moodier by the day. "Aw, I wanted to go swimming!" he protested.

"How about the koi pond?" Alan joked.

Margaret rolled her eyes and rubbed her arms. She shivered a little.

Again, Alan tried to put his arm around her, but she moved away.

Alan felt hurt that she wouldn't stay by him.

"No fair," Don complained. "Why does Charlie get to swim?" He pointed.

Alan frowned and shot an annoyed look over the water to where his younger son splashing in the water. Then he turned away. Watching Charlie was Margaret's job, not his.

He looked around for Margaret, but she was gone.

Suddenly, he felt nauseated. Margaret was gone again. She'd left a long time ago. Why had he thought that she was there?

"Dad? Dad!" Charlie was trying to attract his attention. Typical, Charlie was always needing attention of some kind.

Now that Margaret was gone, Donnie should be looking after his brother. Alan looked around for his first born, but Donnie was moving away at a good clip. 

"Donnie!"

Don didn't look around. He was striding towards a group of men dressed in khaki uniforms. Just looking at them made Alan feel uneasy. 

The khaki clad men were obviously looking for something and Alan really desperately wanted Donnie to stay away from them. He didn't know what they were looking for, and he didn't want Donnie to find out.

Besides, he told himself, Donnie could probably make Charlie behave. Charlie really shouldn't be messing around in the ocean on a day like this.

Suddenly it occurred to Alan that maybe Charlie was in trouble. He walked to the edge of the bluff and looked down the ten feet or so to the ocean. Charlie was splashing around among some seaweed. Apparently, he was trying to get back to shore, but he wasn't making any headway. 

"Dad!" Charlie cried.

"Charlie," Alan bellowed. "Get out of there!" Like the boy wasn't trying. Alan looked around. "Donnie!" 

Don had joined the khaki-clad men and Alan felt a stab of fear. "Donnie, come here and help your brother!"

Don just waved him off irritably. 

Alan started towards Don. He stopped uncertainly and went back to the cliff, which was now fifty feet or more above the beach. Why hadn't he gone down when he had a chance?

"Charlie!" Alan roared.

No answer.

Alan looked around wildly for a way down. The khaki-clad searchers were inching down the path to the beach and would not let him pass.

"Donnie! Charlie needs you!" Alan cried.

Don just shot him a disgusted look. 

Alan tried to push past the searchers. One of them shoved him roughly to the ground. Alan pushed himself up to his elbows and found himself at eye level with…

His alarm clock.

It was 3:14 AM.

Alan blinked. No beach… no fog… no cause for alarm. He shivered and unconsciously reached to Margaret's side of the bed. 

No Margaret, of course. Her side of the bed was as cold as… a beach on an overcast day. 

It had been uncomfortably hot when he had gone to bed. Now it was unpleasantly cold. Or maybe it just felt cold because he was lonesome. Alan had hated sleeping alone the entire time Margaret and Charlie had been in New Jersey. He still hated it. He wondered if he would ever get used to it.

He had a faint memory of poodles in his nightmare. Maybe he should consider buying a dog and letting it sleep on his bed. It would have to be a big one, a standard poodle, like the ones in his dream, rather than a little yappy poodle like the little horror that Aunt Irene owned.

Granted, a poodle wouldn't warm his bed the way a girlfriend would. On the other hand, a poodle wouldn't shock Charlie's delicate sensibilities… unless it chewed up one of Charlie's notebooks.

He pulled the blankets up from the foot of the bed and debated crawling back inside, but decided that he needed a little something to help him get back to sleep.

He slung his bathrobe on and trundled downstairs in search of liquid refreshment.

The question was what kind? The clichéd class of warm milk? Or a nice, stiff shot of scotch?

He opened the liquor cabinet and surveyed the contents.

He really shouldn't be drinking. He had a meeting first thing in the morning. He sniggered. This wasn't like his undergraduate days when he could show up to class with bloodshot eyes and a pocketful of cough lozenges that he'd almost believed would mask the smell of alcohol on his breath.

He wondered if Don had ever had days like that. He grinned and decided that he probably had. Don was really his father's son in some ways. Not like Charlie… Alan shook that thought off angrily. Charlie had always tried to be a good son.

Granted, there had been times when Charlie had failed dismally. However, Alan couldn't claim to have been the perfect father and husband 24/7, either. And Charlie's heart was in the right place.

Alan wondered what Charlie would say if he woke him up for some friendly binge drinking. This provoked some silent laughter. Much as Alan hated drinking alone, he really didn't feel up to a justified tirade from a rudely awakened Charlie.

He wandered into the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. Suddenly, the thought of warm milk made him feel like an old man. He returned to the liquor cabinet in a fit of rebellion. This time, an unfamiliar bottle caught his eye. It was the Godiva liquor that Margaret had been fond of. She'd never had a chance to finish this last bottle.

Alan deliberately pulled away from melancholy thoughts. Margaret wouldn't want him to get all mopey over her liquor. He picked up the bottle and inspiration struck. Why not combine the salubrious effects of Tryptophan and alcohol? He smirked to himself and decided that he'd been hanging around Larry too long.

He made himself some hot chocolate and kicked it up with a slug of the Godiva. 

He was on his way back to his room with his mug and a plate of graham crackers when he noticed that there was a light on in the solarium. Maybe he should ask Charlie to join him after all.

Charlie was sitting at the table, head buried in his hands. Alan wondered if his son was asleep or crying.

"Charlie? What's wrong?" Alan asked, half expecting his sons' usually reply of 'nothing.'

Charlie looked up and blinked furiously, as if waking up or holding back tears. "Um, I'm failing one of my students," he said hoarsely.

Alan tilted his head and studied his offspring. "Failing as in giving out an 'F' or failing as in letting him down?" he asked. 

Charlie grimaced. "Well, both. It's the same thing, really."

Alan walked around the table and rubbed Charlie's back, the area between his shoulder blades, with his free hand. He could feel Charlie's tenseness and see lines of fatigue on the younger man's face.

He wasn't surprised that Charlie was taking the student's problem so hard. He knew Charlie had a tender heart.

"So what's the problem?" Alan asked. "He can't keep up?"

Charlie rubbed his face with both hands. "Yeah, and he's trying so hard, too," he said mournfully. "It's just not getting him anywhere."

"This student's taking this hard, isn't he?" Alan added.

Charlie nodded.

"But why do you have to solve his problems…"

A hurt expression crossed Charlie's face.

Alan had a flashback to the beach dream, which Charlie being pulled out to sea and everybody standing around doing nothing. No, Charlie couldn't do that to anybody. "… at three o'clock in the morning?" he finished hastily.

Charlie jerked his left arm up and gawked at his bare wrist. Then he began to root around the cluttered table.

Alan grasped Charlie's arm and pulled the younger, lighter man to his feet. "Look, my little professor, I may not have the math chops you do, but I've been telling time for a very long time. Trust me when I say it's way past your bedtime."

He tugged and Charlie followed meekly, obviously too sleepy to object.

Alan concentrated on steering Charlie with one hand and balancing his dessert and nightcap in the other. He was faintly surprised when Charlie spoke.

"This is your room, Dad," Charlie said.

So much for the too sleepy to object.

"I know that," Alan said in mild reproof. "I just want to keep an eye on you, little boy."

Instead of arguing, Charlie sank down onto Margaret's side of the bed. Alan picked up a water glass from the nightstand and poured one-third of his nightcap into it. He and Charlie shared a house; they could share a few germs, too.

The glass had contained nothing but water. He was feeling fine and the Godiva should kill off anything that might lurk. Besides, if Charlie did get sick, well, Alan still owed him for those mumps twenty-five years ago.

Not that he was bitter or anything.

Charlie swallowed some of it, squeezed one eye shut so he could study the concoction closely with the other. "What is this stuff?" he demanded.

"It's your mother's favorite drink," Alan lied. "Graham cracker?"

Charlie shook his head. "I think you got the recipe wrong," Charlie said.

"Philistine," Alan retorted. "I retract the offer to share my graham crackers," he added, blithely ignoring the fact that Charlie had already turned down the crackers.

Alan finished his dessert and took the dishes back downstairs. He hoped his sterling behavior would serve as an example to Charlie.

When he got back, Charlie was sound asleep, curled up on his side, the water glass filled with staining liquid held loosely in his hand.

Alan rescued the glass and finished off the chocolate. (No sense in wasting it. Besides, Charlie couldn't do that mumps thing twice, could he?) (Not that he was still nursing a grudge.) Once again he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He left the rinsed out glass sitting on the sink. No point in wasting sterling behavior when the pupil wasn't watching.

He tucked the bedspread around his sleeping offspring and climbed back into bed.

It really was nicer with a warm body on the other side of the bed, Alan thought. Maybe I really should look into those poodles. I can always claim that they're my grandchildren. They'll look enough like Charlie that I could probably get away with it.

zzz 0.o zzz 

The fog was still drifting over the beach. However, the sun had slid below the cloud cover and was lending a rosy glow to the scene and warming up the sand.

Don had joined the khaki clad band of searchers and was now assisting the boy scouts as they picked up litter. The boys shouted jokes at each other and pointed out objects of interest.

Margaret was standing vigil between Charlie and the still cold looking surf. Not that Charlie was interested in swimming at the moment. He was too engrossed in teaching geometry to the poodles, using sand castles to demonstrate his concepts.

Margaret rubbed her arms absently, and Alan approached her and draped a blanket around her shoulders. He poured a mug of cocoa from the thermos he was suddenly holding and handed it to her.

Margaret was too polite and refined to grimace the way Charlie had. She did study the mug a tad suspiciously, though. "I see you got into my Godiva," she teased.

Alan grinned. "No sense in letting it go to waste," he pointed out.

"This recipe needs work," Margaret asserted.

"I got it from you," Alan protested.

Margaret looked surprised, and then she laughed when she realized he was pulling her leg. "In your dreams, Buddy," she said.

Alan laughed. "Nothing wrong with a few dreams, is there?" he asked. He looked out over the ocean. "Especially at three o'clock in the morning."


End file.
